A Fable
by Gone and forgoten
Summary: In which we travel to an island, just out of sight, and get to know the native who live there.


The next time you are at the beach, stand at the very edge of the water, where the waves bite at your ankles and dig little holes in the sand beneath each of your toes, and gaze out across the great, gray plane of the ocean. Stare at the horizon, squint, strain your eyes as hard as you can, but still you won't see it. You may think you have seen it, but you will soon realize with disappointment that what you have seen is simply a boat in the distance, or a drift of seaweed, or the workings of an overeager mind.

This thing that you will not see is an island, tucked just behind the curve of the world, far off of any coastline. The island is surrounded on all sides by a deep, startlingly blue skein of water, and its golden sands and yellow palms make it look, from the sky—though an airplane has never flown overhead—like a brass button in a great felt navy coat.

The island is not overlarge, but it is large enough to show up on a map of the region, though it has never been on any map. The sands slope steeply out of the water at the edges of the island, and form a series of broad beaches, some white, some gold, that undulate softly against the sea like the lines of a natural calligraphy. Further back, small, scrubby stands of stubborn beach grass and occasional shoots of yellowed bamboo stud the beach. Here and there, bits of driftwood have been set or washed into cryptic ideograms. A few steps further, and you are confronted with the first emissaries of the jungle: the oldest and tallest palm trees, their rough trunks having grown outwards from the heart of the island, jab at low angles towards the water and leave their bushy animal heads floating a few feet above the hot sand. Tracing their trunks back towards the center of the island, one finds a wall of palms, ferns, mosses and elephant ears all jostling for sunlight. If you could see the sunlight on the island, you wouldn't blame them.

The sunlight on the island is clear and pristine, raining down from an eternally cloudless, cornflower sky. It pours in buckets, drenching the island with milk at dawn, butterscotch at midday, and thick amber caramel in the late afternoons. It scuttles like a sea urchin overhead, radiating spines of hazy fire to bathe the sands below. It tears at the edges of itself like a hole cut with dull scissors in the sheet of the sky, a hole through which falls yard after yard of gossamer light, fabric pulled through glorious fabric from a golden bolt hidden just behind the heavens.

There are people on the island. Not too many, by any count, for there is still plenty of room on the island to explore and cultivate, but enough to form tribes; enough so that no one is ever lonely for long. From the high peak of the towering mountain in the center of the island, one can spot bare patches all across the jungle, where the people have scratched out clearings for their towns, roads, and city halls. At night, the flickering light of a fire radiates from each town as if it were a miniature volcano spewing still-burning ash upward on dark, sweet-smelling billows of smoke. This is the smell of the tribe cooking dinner, a great communal feast of swordfish or marlin or (very occasionally) pig.

Everyone on the island is a fisherman. Though there are many different tribes and many types of people on the island—some short, some tall, some fat, others slender, some with skin like cocoa, some like copper, some with round eyes and some with almond eyes—and though the different tribes differ in many customs—the clothes they wear, the Gods they worship, the way they treat their elderly and children, whom they let marry whom, and why, and for how long—one of the two things that everyone on the island has in common is that they fish. Young and old, there is simply no way to survive on the island without fishing, because there is just not enough food on the island to support all of the hungry people there. The occasional warthog or rabbit captured in the jungle is far from sufficient, and so it is that every morning there are thousands of ships of all types crowding the shoreline, and all through the day there are fishers with their nets, or hooks, or wooden traps bobbing on the ocean, catching fish after fish to haul back in for supper.

Out on the ocean, waiting for their fish, the people of the island talk to each other. A bulky woman with a shock of brown hair sailing in a pale canoe will drift towards the dark rowboat of a man all covered in black tattoos, and shout to him, asking how his family and his tribe fare, and who is chief now, and has he heard anything about the panther that was prowling around last week. In this way, all the thousands of people living on the island get to know one another, and the tribes, though separate, are knowledgeable of one another, and at least in this way become united.

The other thing that everyone on the island has in common is the Festival. On a particular day when the sun rides just-so in the sky, all the people on the island know that the time has come for the great Festival, and without a word said to the other tribes, each assembles on the biggest beach just as dusk comes on. Bathed in the purple light of a failing day, they draw all of their boats to the water's edge, until every family on the island stands beside their boat, waiting for the first star of the night to signal the beginning of the competition. The line of boats spans the entire length of the island's longest beach like bunched beads on a necklace. The gentle water laps at thousands of hulls: curved, squared, flat-bottomed, even log-hewn rafts and one-man kayaks carved from a single tree trunk. Beside each boat is a man or woman or family, all with necks craned back, all straining to be the one to catch sight of the night's first blooming star.

Eventually the star appears, flares into life, twinkling above their heads, emblazoned like a silver stud on the deep leather night. As one, they shout. They hoot and whoop, and the clamor shakes the island, rocketing outwards in all directions, even to the high peak of the towering mountain. The noise rumbles birds from their trees, sending them clumsily into the air to wheel and squawk for a few moments before alighting on a branch once more, as if realizing that the terrible sound must only be the human-creatures' Festival come again. As the birds draw their wings around their heads to sleep again, down below on the beach, the people of the islands scramble to heave their boats out onto the water. Digging their heels into the sand, they lean backwards, pulling the bulk of their ship out onto the glassy waves and wetting the bottoms of their pants, skirts and robes. Some of the young ones lift their boat together, straight up, and run it into the water. Some of the old ones stumble or slip, falling into shallow foam and letting out surprised yelps; those next to them help them get their ships afloat (after a chuckle or two). Within minutes, the thousand ships are drifting away from the island, an unbroken line of boats leaving the land like a layer of shed skin.

A few yards out into the water, and the line breaks up. The people speak quietly to one another, wishing one another luck and bidding family members goodbye. They speak in hushed voices, voices smothered by the descending night and nervous joy of the Festival. They drift away from each other, spreading out onto the sea like balls on a pool table, each towards his own favored spot, each resolved to face the morning sun as the champion of the island.

The island is now deserted, save for the few sick and elderly who can no longer bear to feel the rocking of the sea. These few lay awake, salivating, and remember when they, too, competed. Though there can be only one winner each year, every person on the island knows that they have as much chance of winning as anyone else, for this is a lesson taught universally to the young people of the island. Everyone competes, and everyone may win, if only they try hard enough, and are touched with a little luck.

When the boats finally settle in, some dropping anchor, some simply drifting, trusting the gentle winds that sweep around the island, the people begin preparing their traps. Some are superstitious, caressing carved rocks or found pieces of coral that have been worn smooth by human touch, or else donning pendants made of feathers and a bit of leather string. Nearly all have some sort of ritual to help ensure a good catch, whether it be as simple as double- and triple-checking the joints and ropes on the trap, or as complex as saying a prayer over the trap or cutting their hands with a flint knife and smearing blood onto the ancient wood.

There is technique in the baiting as well, of course. Most will bait their traps with some sort of food: bits of salted pork saved for months, sweet coconut shreds, or a mush made of roots dug from the jungle soil. Some add personal trinkets, shiny things, or things they hope the Sussuraceans might want to trade their shells for.

Everyone adds a song. It is common knowledge on the island that the Sussuraceans love music and songs, and that no fisher has ever caught a Sussuracean without enticing it first with a song. The song they sing into the traps is the Fishing Song, which all of the island's children are sung each night as they go to sleep from the time they are born. Because of this, all the people of the island know it, and once they have completed all other preparations, attached the heavy ropes, cut them to the proper lengths, they wait until the stars have all come out and the night is dark—there is no moon on the night of the Festival—and they sing. The stillness of the air lets the sound travel, and though the people cannot see one another across the dark waters, they can hear the faint, trembling notes of the Fishing Song coming from all around them as one by one each fisher starts to sing. Some start singing before others and some after, so that the air thrums thick with the light melody, and the sounds of the song linger long after it is over, like ghosts walking the waves or echoes bouncing off the big cave of the night sky.

The song is sad and plaintive, and it goes like this:

_Mother ocean, father sun_

_Brothers, sisters all_

_Raise voices to the lonely night_

_Sing the fishing call_

_Mother ocean, father sun_

_Mend my nets, make them tight._

_Mother palm and father sand_

_The coconut I ate_

_Is lonely in my empty throat_

_Nothing on my plate_

_Nothing in my tired hands_

_Nothing yet in my boat._

After the last voices fade, the people of the island wait in the vast black silence, listening to the lapping of the water and the noises of the song which isn't there anymore. When that too fades, they each drop their traps into the water, careful to make a small splash—Sussuraceans are timid, and easily annoyed—and arm over arm they let out the thick ropes, lowering the song and other bait to the depth they have chosen as ideal. What this depth is is a topic of much debate, and each fisher must make that decision on their own. Once the traps are floating below them, the people of the island wait for the Sussuraceans, their boats gently rocking as the water heaves with the deep breaths of the slumbering earth.

Sussuraceans are very unique creatures, and you are likely not to have heard of them, let alone seen one. They only live deep in the ocean, and only in the vicinity of the island I am telling you about (although Japanese fishermen claim to have caught a Sussuracean which later escaped, this has never been proven, and the photos are most likely doctored).

Larger than regular crabs, most adult Sussuraceans are the size of a large dinner plate, and about as thick as a pillow. One reason Sussuraceans are not well known is that, unlike other crustaceans, they are not able to easily leave the ocean. Sussuraceans prefer the depths of the ocean, where they can tunnel through the water like silk or simply float upside-down in rapt contemplation. When taken on land, a Sussuracean becomes stupid and clumsy. It's shell, which while underwater is an ever-changing, shimmering play of light and color, soon becomes a dull, ordinary red when exposed to the air.

Sussuraceans are intelligent and curious creatures, but adhere to a very strong moral code. If trapped in an underhanded fashion, they will soon use their strong claws and devious intellect to find a way free, but if trapped properly, in a trap baited with song or other things which the Sussuraceans prize, they will calmly—though some say solemnly—take their place in the trap and allow themselves to be captured and their shells, which are the object of most who attempt to capture them, to be taken.

It is this fact that allows all the people of the island to capture the Sussuraceans, as they have known for centuries the proper bait to use and the ways to make a trap comfortable and inviting to a Sussuracean. Usually, it is not long before a fisher who has lowered a trap feels a tug on the line, or hears the ringing of a bell, to tell them that a Sussuracean has chosen their trap as its final home. Then they happily pull the traps up, hearts beating in anticipation, hoping that their Sussuracean will be the biggest, most beautiful one captured that year. One look at the shimmering, phosphorescent shell of their catch, and they are sure it is true. All the way back to the beach they grin secretively, convinced more than ever before that they can win the Festival competition this year.

Before the canopy of stars has been drawn a quarter of the way across the sky, all the thousands of boats that left the island are back on the beach, hastily drawn in or tipped up against palm trees, scattered across the sand like driftwood. The tracks of thousands of people and thousands of dragged traps form a path from the beach to a clearing only a few hundred yards away, where the big bonfires are already burning and the next part of the Festival is ready to begin.

Dozens of long, wooden tables have been set up, their tops slicked down with a varnish made from tree sap. It captures the light of the burning fires and seems to glow from within. Each villager has caught a Sussuracean; each and every man, woman and child has brought their very own entry to the competition. As the islanders dump their traps out onto the tables, the Sussuraceans' shells are already beginning to fade to an ordinary red. They stumble around dumbly for a few seconds, bumping into one another as if drunk, before finally rolling over onto their backs.

As one, the islanders begin carving, separating the delicate shells from the still-living Sussuraceans. Like fishing, this requires its own technique, and each tribe has a different manner of cutting and skinning, a different preference for type of knife, point of first incision, and direction of cut. The creatures twitch instinctively when cut open, flinching away from the pain, but most of their organs are removed simply enough by reaching a hand in, squeezing the heart, and ripping. All of a Succeracean's organs are attached to the heart, so this is a very efficient way of de-shelling them. The islanders have learned to feel for the small, hard heart, and do so with intense focus. They work intently, never speaking other than to grunt in effort or concentration. The work is not silent, however, as the Sussuraceans begin all at once to strike up a cheerful chorus of their Death Song, in trade for the Fishing Song that was given them.

The song is always the same, and it goes like this:

_Fisher, you who captives keep_

_Brother, sister hear_

_The song you sang stuck in our heart_

_The sky so near_

_Looks wide and deep_

_As any fisher's art._

_Sink upwards, upwards fall_

_Rise up to the depths_

_The sea is black, the current breathes_

_The ocean's secrets_

_To one and all_

_But your soul deceives._

By the time the Sussuraceans have finished singing, most have been stripped of their shells, which are now a deep, if inert red. Their silence is taken by most to mean they have died, although it is impossible to tell whether what remains of the Sussuracean is alive or not. What remains are the Crab's innards, little more than a pile of gleaming white pulp and various pumping organs attached to two eyestalks at the top. The thick pudding usually has a few items lodged in it: things, perhaps, that the creature ate, or discovered on the ocean floor, things dropped off the sides of cruise ships or washed out to sea after being left on a beach towel. A digital watch, or a tuft of fur, the feel of a handshake—but all in all the mess is rather unsightly, and the innards, along with anything stuck in them, melt into a pungent gray slime when left unattended. Some tried to cook and eat the meat once, but it was tough and difficult to prepare, and tended to cause indigestion. A few helpful islanders collect this scrap for everyone and make a large pile of it on the beach, where the next day's high tide will carry it away.

At this point, I'd like to say something about cultural heritage. Although the capturing and de-shelling of the Sussuraceans may seem cruel or barbaric to some more tenderhearted readers, I wish to remind you that you did not grow up on this island, nor in this culture, and that it is rather rude to judge those with whom you are altogether unfamiliar. Let me assure you, these islanders are little different from yourself, and should you have grown up in their society, with their beliefs, you would have a very different view towards the Sussuraceans and the Festival, I am sure. In fact, some of _your_ cultural habits, I would point out, may seem rather bizarre or uncivilized to _these_ people, and I think that in general the world would be a much better place if we could refrain from judging one another by our own society's standards, and instead learn to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to think about what similarities there may be between us, rather than differences.

In any case, once the remains of the Sussuraceans have been piled on the beach, the islanders clean and polish the shells they have collected (careful not to chip the delicate surface) until each shines like a burnished red shield under the uneven light of the bonfires.

By the time they are finished, the darkest of the night has passed. Most are weary from the hours spent waiting for their traps, shelling the Crabs, and scraping and polishing the shells; their joints and bones ache, their eyelids droop. Nevertheless, all—even the youngest children competing—shake off sleep and fill their lungs with cold, bracing air. They will need the vigor and enervation of the night; they will need to strum their heartstrings tighter and louder, to let the burning each feels in their chest grow, carry them forward with supreme passion to their final and most important task: painting and carving the delicate shell of the Sussuracean.

For the Festival is, above all, an art competition. It is a battle to arrest, to awe, to stun and crush and seduce with the beauty of one's shell. Each islander has until sunup to reform and refashion the ceramic plate into anything they choose, to wrench their souls from their bodies and etch them wholly upon the red canvas of the shell. Each islander knows, each has been taught and believes, that whosoever harbors that passion of the artist in their heart and the vision and clarity to commune with their own spirits—whosoever desires the most—will ultimately be voted the Festival's winner.

But the people are not foolish. Not like the Festivals of decades past, when competitors spent hours crawling the jungle floor, snouts in the dirt, scraping hands and knees in search or roots and berries to mix into dyes, spying out well-formed rocks to use for carving the shells, or scrabbling up trees to scavenge feathers or bits of eggshell from a birds' nest for decoration, or whole eggs to make into glue. Some fools, in those less civilized days, even went so far as to scale the high peak of the towering mountain to try and get a view of the jungle like a smooth dark stone, and the water stretching off in its infinite wrinkles, and the sky filled with so many stars it was a wonder it didn't come crashing down. These terribly primitive people used to try and use these things to stir their spirit, inform their artistic work, but nearly all today agree that climbing the mountain or crawling through the jungle isn't worth the bumped shins, bleeding palms or aching bones.

The islanders competing tonight have no need of things like dyes or carving tools or water or stars to make their art. They don't need anything to stir their spirits, either. Are their hearts not already beating fast? Are their chests not stinging? Their spirits not spinning and roiling? Their cheeks not hot and flushed with the throbbing need to prove that they are the best, the most deserving of being recorded for all time as a champion of the island?

No, the islanders are not fools. They know that the Festival is a competition, and like all competitions, it is not merely the greatest artistic endeavor that takes the prize. They know that one must understand the rules in order to win; one must be able to move sideways and climb ladders backwards, to manage the system like one manages the jungle: subtly, and with tact.

So the people work on, moving the shells this way and that, rolling them in their hands, pondering what artistic thing may lie inside or on the surface of the chitinous shell. They run their hands along the outside, imagining that somewhere within, the key to their victory is locked away, waiting to be released. Something to make everyone stop and take notice. To take breaths away. To be beloved and praised by all. Each islander holds their shell as if they have already won, as if the shells they hold are gold medals. The fires dance in their eyes.

Hours pass. The sun has almost begun to roll back into the sky, and faint, trembling light peeks out from the world's edge, bringing with it the smell of morning and cold dew on the skin. The great bonfires are smoldering, bathing the people in a deep cherry glow. Still intent, still silently moving their shells in their hands, the islanders wait for dawn, the signal for the end of the Festival, and for the time when they will all to come together and choose a winner.

They—all of them—have left their shells unmarked. Each is as simple, plain, and mutely red as it was when they split them from the Sussuracean's quivering insides. This may seem strange to you, who knows so little about art, but when you hear how smart, how clever and reasonable the people of this island are, you will not think it so strange. If you were to ask one of the island people why they didn't paint or carve their shell, this is what they would tell you:

"When the time comes, each competitor will cast their vote for the winner of the competition. Is it not to be expected that each person will vote for their own entry? If I spend hours turning my shell into a unique and splendid work of art, it will be all the easier to identify, and no one will dare vote for it. I will lose the competition, having wasted an entire night's effort. On the other hand, if I can make my shell look exactly like another one, there is a chance that a competitor will vote for my shell, thinking it is theirs. Since my neighbors' shells are blank, I will leave mine blank as well, and cast my vote randomly. Better a chance at winning than a guarantee of failure."

No, the people of the island are not fools.

In time, the peeking light making the stars pale blossoms into a mane of fire that paints the blue back onto the sea and sky and melts the dew from the leaves. Morning has come. Setting down their shells, the islanders gather once again on the beach, where their boats seem strangely cold and alien in the slant of early morning. From somewhere down the beach, a sick, sweet smell drifts from the warming mountain of rotting Sussuracean flesh. The people do not mind it; their minds are on the vote, and the tide is already rising. Each one grabs a stone or pebble or bit of wood, and trudges back towards the tables without a word.

After the shells are gathered and mixed (with each competitors' name marked secretly inside), they are laid out again and the islanders carefully weigh their choice, stopping reverently before each identical shell, examining its contours and particular geometry before moving on to the next. One by one they choose, and leave their bit of rock or wood on the table in front of the shell they hope is theirs. One by one the lots are deposited, and slowly the piles accumulate, most shells with one vote, but some with two, three, or four and many with none. Just as the sun's rays are slicing through the highest palm fronds, the votes are counted. This year, the winner received eight votes; eight pebbles sit in a small pile before the perfectly red shell.

For a moment, everyone is still. Each holds their breath, burning, willing that the name on the bottom of the shell be theirs, that they be the artist of this masterpiece. They gather around it, pushing and pulsing towards it magnetically, elbowing one another to get a better view. Some young ones duck between people legs. Some mutter quietly "it's mine, I know it's mine." They all burn.

The shell is flipped. The name read.

She is an older woman, bronzed and wrinkled, wearing a loose sarong around her salt-weary body. When they say her name, she yelps first, then grins, then laughs and weeps all at once. The people around her turn towards her, wondering if she could really be the one. She gasps again and again, until someone from her tribe holds up her arm and shouts to the crowd "It is her! It is her!" By now the woman is shaking with joy, snot running from her nose and tears from her eyes as if she were a child again. The islanders around her lift her up on their shoulder, so that everyone can see the great artist, champion of the island. There is a great cheer, especially from those of her tribe, who feel, at least partly, that they share in her honor.

Others cheer and grin too, seeing her joy, which looks to them like the most supreme joy anyone has ever felt. They ignore the bitter taste that surges up in to the back of their tongues and attribute the lightness in their stomachs to lack of food and sleep, reminding themselves that they tried their best, and that the woman's shell really was quite extraordinary. They vow to try harder next year. Only a few weep, and those are polite enough to leave the crowd and find a place to compose themselves.

The crowd moves as one now, as if prodded forward by the spears of the sun. They have a seeming momentum, moving first to the tables to gather all of the shells, including the winners', and then tumbling downhill to the beach. All together, they throw the losing shells down onto the packed sand by the shoreline and stomp them into hundreds of jagged pieces, shouting and whooping. The shells bow under their feet, as red as hearts, and then splinter with a great cracking noise. The winner, still held aloft, looks back rapturously at the millions of tiny fragments littering the beach as the crowd carries her back towards the center of the island, past the long tables and the now-dead bonfires, into the jungle and towards the high peak of the towering mountain.

By the time they have almost reached the cave at the top of the mountain, it is midday. The sun beats down on the crowd, drawing out any sweat that was not drawn out by the arduous climb. Some small children or older people have stayed at the foot of the mountain, unable to make the climb to the cave. The crowd is quiet now, focused on the work of moving the winner forever up, up, towards the black hole ahead of them. They pass through the mouth of the cave with a sigh, grateful to be on level ground and in the coolness of the cave's shadow. The first ones in stop, as every year, to wait for those behind them, to wait until the entire island has assembled in the big amphitheater of the cavern. While they wait, they peer reverently into the dark, at the statues.

The statues are metal, but the dust of the cave has dulled their luster. They aren't arranged, other than that they all face the mouth of the cave, as if to mirror the islanders waiting to enter. They are all silver in color, and there are hundreds of them. Though the darkness at the back of the cave hides most of them from sight, just those that stand close enough to the front to be viewed are impressive in their number. All types of people are represented—children, old men, dark skinned and light, crippled and virile—the statues are as various and eclectic as the island people themselves. One would think that the people depicted in the statues had nothing in common, but the growing crowd at the mouth of the cave know better: these are the winners, the champions of the island. Each statue is the perfect likeness of one of the island's many great artists and spiritual visionaries. At the base of each, the shell of the winner sits, covered with thick blankets of dust and web.

Oh, they think, to be immortalized in this hall of wonders! This years' winner gazes at the statues in the dusky light and weeps. She clutches her shell to her chest with both arms like a little girl hugging a doll. Her eyes become glassy with tears of joy, and she bounces on top of her carriers' shoulders, wordlessly urging them forward. As one in their wonder and awe, the crowd swims through the cool of the cave towards the back, where the throne awaits.

The throne is not a chair. The throne is a ring of stone columns, each the size of a man. They rise towards the invisible cave ceiling until they disappear into dusk. Each is worn smooth by thousands of years, by the millions of hands that have touched them, hoping for some feeling of the sacred and divine. The circle they encompass is ten feet in diameter, and the floor is bowl-shaped from eons of use. An ancient iron grating is set in the center, thickened with rust, but strong as ever. This is the holiest of places, the blessed circle that may only be inhabited once each year, by the winner of the Festival.

They slowly lower her from their shoulders and set her small feet on the floor of the cave. Weakly, the woman pads forward, still clutching her shell. As she approaches the circle of columns, she absently reaches out to someone nearby, handing them her shell, that glorious opus, to be placed with her statue when the time comes. She does not look at them, but fixes her eyes at the center of the ring. When she passes through the line of columns into where the ground begins to slope down towards the grate, she feels a sudden electricity, a rush of fulfillment, and she gasps. She almost collapses, but steadies herself on one of the great stones.

She sets one of her callused feet onto the rough grating, and hums at the cold, damp feeling. It is all just as she imagined it. She laughs again, and it echoes in the cave, soaring over the silenced crowd. Grinning, she moves to the very center of the grating, and turns to face the crowd. The grating sinks slightly, as if she has pressed a button. Above, there is a rumble too large and too mighty to be anything but divine, quickly followed the hiss of liquid slithering downwards from the plumbless dark above her.

In the seconds before the molten ore hits her, the woman wonders what position she ought to stand in. A few dignified poses flash through her mind in a rush. Why hadn't she thought of this before? In the end, she manages to raise one hand to her chin, and purses her lips in an expression of deep thought. Then the liquid stone pours down onto her, melting her flesh and burning her hair and boiling her eyes in an instant, enveloping her in a fire that will vaporize her, leaving nothing but a her-shaped hole when the rock finally cools and the others crack it open to pour in the silver that will become her statue. She screams, of course, as she dies, sings out a single note of her Death Song before her throat is burnt to nothing.

It is sad and plaintive, but it doesn't go like anything, because after all, it's only a scream.

When high tide comes in, most of the people on the island are sleeping. The Festival is finally over, and the warm afternoon seems an ideal time for a nap in the curve of a palm tree's back or on the clean white sheet of a hidden beach. No one, of course, sleeps on the big beach; the stink of the Sussuracean meat is nearly overpowering, and shards of red shell still lie half-buried in the sand, ready to cut an unwary foot.

There are a few, however, that linger at the beach, though not to sleep. Every year, it seems, there are some of them, but always fewer and fewer. Mostly old ones, they gather around the white pile, holding their noses. This year, there is even a young boy. The mass, almost ten feet high, still quivers, though if there is a breeze it is too slight to be felt. A few items stick out of the pile, partially melted but identifiable: a bit of kite string, a child's doll, the taste of raspberries.

The old folks seem to not know what to do with themselves as they watch the pile get washed back out to sea. The boy makes an exploratory poke with his finger, which comes away slimy. Keeping his nose pinched, he starts to gingerly dig through a few of the dead creatures' remains, then stops, seeming embarrassed. Others just stare at the pile, transfixed by reasons they are not able to explain. Some make low muttering noises, or rock back and forth in the sand. Those ones will stay with the pile, not knowing why, until it is entirely swallowed by the hungry waves.

In an hour the last of the pile is gone, and they wander back to their homes, never talking to one another, scarcely aware that the others even exist, choking on words they don't know the tune to. They arrive at their villages as if from a daze, just in time for supper and sleep. If they complain of a mysterious melancholy, their families assure them that they are simply overtired, and need to take care of themselves better.

After a dreamless night, they usually forget the gleaming pile, and perhaps they forget, too, how each gray body seemed to slide into the water a little _too_easily, seemed to flick or twitch or glimmer in _just_ such a way as to make you think there might be some life left in the Sussuraceans after all. Perhaps they even forget the queer thoughts they had, the unexplainable urges to dive into the pile and dig with all their might, to follow the white things into the soul-blue sea, to help them find new, glorious shells in the deep water.


End file.
